So, here are our picks for the MAC – East Division for the 2014 football season (in order of projected finish):
- Bowling Green Falcons
- Ohio Bobcats
- Akron Zips
- Buffalo Bulls
- Kent State Golden Flashes
- Miami, Ohio Redhawks
- UMass Minutemen
We follow with a brief synopsis of each team in the East Division:
Bowling Green Falcons – Dino Babers, coming from Eastern Illinois after two successful seasons as its head coach, replaces Dave Clawson who left to become the head coach at Wake Forest University. Besides bringing impressive success from his previous coaching stint at Eastern Illinois, Babers also brings a fast-break style of football offense, one similar to that employed by the Baylor Bears where he served as its Wide Receivers coordinator as well as being the former offensive coordinator at Arizona and Texas A&M.
Grabbing the keys to Babers’ high-octane offense will be returning Junior Quarterback Matt Johnson who should improve on his 3,467 passing yards and 25 touchdowns. The ground game will be led by Travis Greene, who rushed for a school-record 1,594 yards. In addition to the two backfield stalwarts, most of Bowling Green’s (BG’s) receiving corps are back as are most of its offensive line, so optimism is high for the Falcons to light up the scoreboard at Doyt Perry Stadium.
The Falcons’ defense led the MAC in scoring defense, allowing a stingy 15.9 points per game, particularly so during its stretch drive as well as leading the MAC in total defense and rushing defense. Most of the losses on defense were in its defensive secondary, particularly losing all-everything Strong Side Safety and kick-return specialist Booboo Gates.
However, with the addition of the aggressive Babers and several key offensive weapons, the Falcons should not only dominate the East Division, but the rest of the MAC.
Ohio Bobcats – Bobcats football coach Frank Solich is entering his 10th season as its coach and has established a solid, consistent football program for the previously long-suffering Ohio Bobcats. The Bobcats finished the 2013 football season with a 7-6 record and 4-4 in the MAC. It was a ‘tale of two seasons’ for the Bobcats who stormed out of the gates with a 5-2 start then lost three games by a combined 123-16 score as its defense floundered and its offense sputtered, struggled to beat an abysmal UMass team and flamed out late in its Beef O’Brady’s Bowl loss to East Carolina.
The offense lost to graduation dependable quarterback Tyler Tettleton and running back Beau Blankenship, two players who seemed to have been around forever. Tettleton’s spot appears to be up in the air, with dual-threat candidate’s Derrius Vick and JD Sprague vying to run the offense. Its running game will be manned by two largely unproven running backs, the speedy Daz Patterson and the bullish Tim Edmond, formerly a tight end. The receiving corps was completely decimated by graduation and the Bobcats do return most of its offensive line but it’s a young group and was shuffled around quite often, last season.
The good news regarding the Bobcats defense is that it returns seven starters – and that’s the bad news: the Bobcats were simply outmanned, giving up nearly 5 yards per carry on the ground and gave up several big plays and massive amounts of yardage. With the losses on offense, the hope is that its defense’s solid depth obtained during the season will stem the tide to remain competitive in the MAC. It appears that it should be able to continue its 5-year consecutive bowl appearance streak but unseating the vaunted Falcons will be quite a tall order.
Akron Zips – in finishing the season by winning its last three games, 3rd year head coach Terry Bowden, the son of coaching legend Bobby Bowden who achieved success as the Auburn Tigers head coach during the 1990s and the Zips appear to be a program who is rising from the doldrums of its three prior seasons of consecutive 1-11 records. The Zips finished 5-7 and finally ended the nation’s longest consecutive losing streak of 28 games by winning at Miami (OH). Akron showed faith in Bowden by extending his contract through the 2017 season.
The Zips offense boasts a plethora of playmaking starters returning for the 2014 season, led by quarterback Kyle Pohl, running back Jawon Chisholm and several experienced receivers including Zach D’Orazio and Fransohn Bickley. However, the offense will only be as successful as Pohl is as he must improve on his 14 to 10 touchdown passes to interception rate as well as being more efficient in running Bowden’s offense. The offensive line should be improved but will remain a question mark until its underclassmen develop.
The Zips defense improved during the 2013 season but incurred major losses on its defensive line and in its defensive secondary so the Zips will enter the season with a lot of unknown commodities.
The Zips hope to continue to make strides in the Bowden regime, but the belief is that the young, unproven Zips are a year away from being a contender in the MAC.
Buffalo Bulls – the Bulls were decimated by graduating losses from the past season, most notably tailback Branden Oliver, wide receiver Alex Neutz and particularly 1st team All-American Mack, who was drafted 5th overall in the NFL draft this past May.
In losing Oliver and his 1,500+ yards, it would appear that the Bulls could be in serious trouble in establishing the running game, but returnee Anthone Taylor nearly matched Oliver’s Yards Per Carry (YPC) average and should provide similar productivity. And although Neutz has also departed, some speedy playmaking receivers should fill in. The offense’s strength will be in its offensive line where all five starters return.
The Bulls defense lost seven starters, most notably Mack and both defensive ends so the Bulls MAC prospects will rise or fall depending on how they can perform on defense as the offense should not miss a beat.
Kent State Golden Flashes – the Golden Flashes plummeted back to the bottom of the standings after Darrell Hazell left to take over the head coaching position at Purdue, going from a stellar 10-2 record in 2012 to a disappointing 4-8 2013 campaign.
The Golden Flashes offense will largely depend on whether quarterback Colin Reardon can be both more consistent and progress in learning the offense and whether running back Traylon Durham can return to the form he displayed while playing at Kansas State before he transferred to Kent State. But the Golden Flashes biggest loss was the graduating Dri Archer to the NFL as his big play ability and blistering speed leaves Kent State without a homerun threat. Their offensive line is very young and inexperienced and will be the key to its ability to recover its competitiveness in the MAC.
Similarly, the Golden Flashes defense lost its best player to graduation, 4-time All-MAC defensive tackle Roosevelt Nix. They do return several starters on defense but those returnees have to compensate for the tackling gap left by Nix.
Unless seismic improvements occur with the returning players, there is dread among Golden Flashes Nation that a return to its former dismal days, are back.
Miami (Ohio) Redhawks – the former ‘cradle of coaches’ is a memory of days gone by – the Redhawks have struggled, mightily, after so many promising coaches left Miami for higher profile head coaching positions, leaving the program in a lurch in going 8-28 over the past three seasons. Former Notre Dame offensive coordinator Chuck Martin now gets a chance to take over a floundering football program, which plummeted to a horrid 0-12 season.
The offense can only go in one direction: hopefully, up. The Redhawks finished dead last in the MAC in rushing, passing, total and scoring offense, scoring less than 10 points per game. Andrew Hendrix, a Notre Dame transfer, should immediately step in to quarterback the offense, whose leading, returning rusher gained meager 171 yards, last season. If there is any glimmer of hope, the Redhawks receiving corps have a deep group of receivers and they also return four of its five offensive linemen.
Like the Ohio Bobcats defense, albeit to an even greater degree, the Redhawks return seven of its defensive starters, this from a squad that surrendered over 40 points on seven occasions and over 50 points on three occasions. Of greatest concern is revamping the defensive line where its greatest graduation losses occurred.
Martin does have a pedigree of winning, both at Notre Dame and as Grand Valley State’s head coach, where he won two Division II National Championship games. But restoring a winless Redhawks squad could be a bit too much to overcome, at least for the 2014 season and for at least a few years.
UMass Minutemen – if it’s hard to fathom picking a team to finish behind a 0-12 Miami Redhawks, then you didn’t witness the abomination that was UMass Minutemen football during the 2013 season. While they did manage to win a game, last season, against the Redhawks, they were hardly competitive and their eventual coaching search was conducted late, right after the holiday season. Mark Whipple returns to Amherst for his second stint after serving as quarterbacks coach in the NFL and most recently as the offensive coordinator for the University of Miami (FL). Whipple hopes for a return to former glory at UMass as he won the former I-AA National Championship in 1998.
The offense’s success rests heavily on Marshall University transfer Blake Frohnapfel as he inherits an unsure running backs corps and an inexperienced offensive line but does benefit from some talent and experience at wide receiver.
While the defensive squad sustained some key losses on the line, the Minutemen’s linebackers and secondary should be both experienced and effective, that is, so long as they’re not forced to stay on the field for such long periods of time as they did, last season.
Minuteman Nation hopes that Whipple can catch ‘lightning in a bottle’ for a second time in Amherst; however, that was in I-AA (now FCS) and repeating in FBS could be a much taller order.
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